May 1 bank holiday in Spain: Everything you have to know about the next Spanish festivo

Learn about the history of this public holiday in Spain, what happens on May 1st and who has the day off

May 1 is a national holiday in the whole of Spain because it is Mayday, or Labour Day, also known as International Workers’ Day, a holiday that is celebrated in many countries around the world.

As it is a ‘festivo’ or public bank holiday in Spain, known in Spanish as ‘El Día del Trabajador’, it is a day when many shops and businesses, not to mention all schools, are shut.

While in the United States, Labor Day is celebrated annually on the first Monday in September, Mayday is celebrated as a bank holiday for workers in many other countries because it commemorates many important historical occurrences in the labour market, such as an 1886 general strike in the United States and the establishment of the Second International by the Marxist International Socialist Congress in 1889.

Nowadays, it is a day when many labour unions and workers’ organisations across Spain and the whole world choose to march and hold special events that raise awareness of the workers’ movement and the rights of employees in the workplace.

In some regions of Spain, if the May bank holiday falls on a weekend it is transferred to the following Monday, and if it falls on a Tuesday then the local authorities may choose to take the Monday as a day off too in order to make a ‘puente’ or long weekend. However, this is entirely at the discretion of each autonomous community in Spain.

It is also left to the discretion of individual supermarkets and shops whether they open on May 1 or not, so it is worth phoning or going in person to your local store to enquire about their opening times on the May bank holiday.

In Madrid, the following day – May 2 – is also a public holiday to commemorate the Second of May Uprising in 1808, so people living in Madrid have an extra day off on this long holiday.

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